Fort Bend DA John Healey exiting office after 26 years as...

1of7Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey is shown with Sandra Salas (left) and Tyra McCollum (right), both with the juvenile division of the District Attorney's Office, during Healey's retirement party at the Gus George Academy in Richmond, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018 in Houston. Healey has served for 26 years in the role.Photo: Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

2of7Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey, right, speaks with Randy McDonald, defense attorney for Bart Whitaker, as they wait for the jury to return with a sentence in 2007. Whitaker was convicted of the 2003 murder-for-hire killing of his mother and brother and was scheduled to be executed this past February, but had his sentence commuted to life in prison by Gov. Greg Abbott.Photo: Bob Levey, Freelance / For The Chronicle

3of7File campaign photo of John Healey, the outgoing Fort Bend County district attorney.Photo: Courtesy / John Healey

4of7Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey explains issues about his campaign finance reports in 2008.Photo: Zen T. C. Zheng / For the Chronicle

5of7John Healey shown in file photo from his early days as Fort Bend County district attorney.Photo: Kerwin Plevka / Houston Chronicle

6of7Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey speaks during a news conference announcing the results of a large drug bust involving steroids Wednesday, May 27, 2009, in Rosenberg. )Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff / Chronicle

7of7Fort Bend District Attorney John Healey during his retirement party at the Gus George Academy in Richmond, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018 in Houston. Healey has served for 26 years in the role.Photo: Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

When John Healey began his career as a young prosecutor in Fort Bend County in the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan was president, MTV had just gone on the air and the then-rural county had fewer than 175,000 residents.

As Healey prepares to leave the office where he’s spent his entire career, including 26 years as the county’s top prosecutor, the sprawling suburb has roughly 764,000 residents with a growing number of diverse communities.

A Republican, Healey announced his retirement more than a year before the blue wave that swept many Democrats into county offices, including his own. Democrat Brian Middleton, a Houston defense attorney who once worked for Healey, will succeed him at the start of 2019.

Healey said he’s had conversations with his former assistant prosecutor and notes they have a good relationship. “He’s got to put his own stamp on this office as best he can and lead it in the direction he believes it’s best to go in,” Healey said of Middleton, the first African-American to be elected district attorney in Fort Bend.

For his part, Healey, 63, said he’s comfortable with his decision to retire and not seek reelection. He plans to make a trip next month to the Great Smoky Mountains with his wife Theodora, a retired teacher.

“I was stronger in my resolve that this was the right time,” Healey said in a recent interview from his Richmond office. “I didn’t want to be just shy of 68 years old in this office (when I retired). I wanted to get on with my life.”

Healey, who first started working at the district attorney’s office January 1982, has seen the county and the courthouse transform over his nearly 37 years. He’s seen former prosecutors move up in their careers and become judges in Fort Bend and Harris counties.

“I think it speaks well of the environment (that the Fort Bend County) commissioners court has allowed us to create here, which we took advantage of,” Healey said. “They could’ve given us all the opportunities and all the resources and all the tools to do a good job, but unless you’re hiring good people — that good job is not going to be realized.”

Memorable cases

The DA’s office has handled thousands of cases under Healey, but some stand out years later.

Healey still remembers a compliment he got from a judge in the 1980s as he was working on the capital murder case of Charles Goosby, who was charged in multiple killings.

“The judge told the defense attorney and myself that he had never seen two better-prepared attorneys and I think he meant that,” Healey said.

He recalled the 2003 case of Thomas “Bart” Whitaker, who was convicted in a murder-for-hire killing of his mother and brother and was scheduled to be executed this past February. In a last-minute move, Gov. Greg Abbott commuted his sentece to life in prison.

He said his heart went out to Donald Leonetti’s family, after the man accused of killing the t-shirt business owner and philanthropist decided not to take a plea deal in 2016. Earlier this year, Healey met with Leonetti’s widow and mother before Eric Norris ultimately accepted the plea deal in court.

“I looked them in the eye and I said, ‘Are you sure this is what you want to do?’ And they told me ,Yes,’” Healey said.

Sam Dick, who served as Fort Bend County’s district attorney in the late 1980s, described Healey as a careful and diligent attorney when he worked for him.

“He was very conscientious, very thorough,” Dick said. “He was hard-working. He had a good sense of balance about justice.”

‘Looking to help’

Outside of the courtroom, Dick said Healey was a friend who showed great compassion toward others in the community.

“John does a lot of stuff behind the scenes,” Dick said. “He’s not looking for the glory. He’s genuinely looking to help other people. He’s just a good person.”

Healey’s success in the courtroom, though, was not met without some controversy. In 2015, a Sugar Land chiropractor, David Rabbani, accused Healey of saying that he would be lenient in prosecuting his son if Rabbani donated to his campaign. Rabbani filed a complaint with the Texas State Bar against the district attorney, but that was dismissed.

He also was accused by the state bar of “professional misconduct” after not promptly notifying a man in prison that evidence used against him may have been tainted. That complaint was later dismissed.

Healey stressed that his office has maintained high standards. “No, our office has tried to be ethical and above board to the ‘nth’ degree,” Healey said. “The legacy is not one of withholding information. It’s one of disclosing information.”

New direction

When Healey turns over the keys of the DA’s office to Middleton, he’ll be passing them along to a former colleague, but also one with a different background and legal outlook. Healey had backed fellow Republican Cliff Vacek, a retired longtime district court judge steeped in the legal establishment.

As part of Middleton’s platform for district attorney, he said the intake process could be reformed so that cases were more thoroughly reviewed before trial, improving the quality of cases going to court. He also has a passion for bail reform, adding that a risk assessment tool could be created to determine what type of bond should be set for a suspect.

“It’s just been slow — slower than what’s needed,” Middleton said of the progress on criminal justice reform in the county. “We’ve been working on bail reform for years, but it just hasn’t been accomplished. Maybe he does have some interest in some criminal justice reform, but not to the degree that I’m interested.”

Healey said that his office has been an advocate of criminal justice reform, noting his support of creating special courts for veterans, mental health and drunken driving. As for bail reform, Healey said, his office has been in talks for more than a year about a plan for bail reform that he says is currently being vetted by criminal justice advocates.

Despite their differences, Middleton considers Healey a friend and says they talk frequently.

“He has a magnetic personality. People tend to like him,” Middleton said. “He’s crossed cultural barriers. He’s done a good job in the minority community of reaching out and making them feel welcome.”

Healey said he’s observed changes in Fort Bend’s criminal justice system and politics during his more than quarter century in office, He said, for example, that he believes, juveniles are committing more serious crimes such as murder and aggravated robbery.

“There’s a layer of a lack of caring and a lack of sensitivity that we didn’t see in the juveniles that committed the most serious crimes before I was district attorney,” Healey said.

County becomes more blue

The county is also tilting more toward the Democrats, from Hillary Clinton winning the county in 2016 to ousting longtime County Judge Bob Hebert, a Republican, this past fall. Hebert will be succeeded by Democrat KP George.

“I think you have a well-organized Democratic Party that mobilized a lot of people on fear across the board in the ballot of Donald Trump,” said Healey. “Those that voted straight-ticket voted good Republicans out of office, didn’t care that they were doing it, and maybe didn’t even know that they were doing it.”

Steven “Rocket” Rosen, who went to South Texas College of Law with Healey and has remained friends with him, said he’s watched Healey create a family atmosphere among his employees at the district attorney’s office and retain respect in the community.

“He always had a good name because of his honesty, his moral and his ethics,” Rosen said. “He instilled confidence in the community. In this society, we need stability. His job is to make sure that you can be on these highways and feel safe, that you can be safe in our schools. You can only do so much, but he went beyond the call of duty.”

As he exits office, Healey said, he still has some goals left unchecked such as implementing a boot camp training program for new prosecutors and a citizen’s district attorney’s academy to help residents learn how the office works.

But he’s ready for his time off and looks forward to enjoying retirement, including more travels with his wife.

“I’m going to miss being with the people on a day-to-day basis, especially the people inside this office who are very special and dear to me.”

Brooke Lewis is a native Houstonian who covers a wide range of stories in Fort Bend County for the city desk. She started out in 2016 as a summer intern at the Chronicle and then went on to work as the night breaking news reporter. She holds a master's degree in journalism from Syracuse University and an English Writing & Rhetoric degree from St. Edward's University in Austin.